Stop Podcasting Yourself - Episode 41 - A.J. Bond
Episode Date: December 9, 2008Filmmaker and former child actor A.J. Bond joins us to talk brushes with Speedman, films (movies), and tons more time travel....
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hi, he's Dave Shumka.
And he's Graham Clark.
And together we host Stop Podcasting Yourself.
Woo!
Hello everybody and welcome to episode number 41 of Stop Podcasting Yourself.
My name is Graham Clark and with me is the man who was the bassist for the biopic, Dave.
The bassist?
Yeah, you were the bassist for the biopic, Dave.
Starring Kevin Kline.
Yeah.
Dave Shumka.
Yeah, I played bass in that.
Kevin Kline on lead guitar and weumka. Yeah, I played bass in that. Kevin Kline on lead guitar, and we had a synth player.
No drums.
Sigourney Weaver played synth.
Right.
If I recall correctly.
It was like the zit remedy from Degrassi.
No drummer.
Just the three dudes.
Yeah.
And all big dreams.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And joining us here today on our number 41st podcast, very glad to have a filmmaker, actor, writer, editor, director.
I think filmmaker is an umbrella term.
Yeah, but filmmaker can be, you know, like he writes it and then he calls himself a filmmaker or he's just a director, but he does it all.
Mr. A.J. Bond, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Thanks for coming out.
Yeah, you do all those things did i miss any credentials well you you haven't scored your films have i haven't scored my films i don't edit my own films because i think that's like but you
are an editor but i am an editor i edit other people's films yeah yeah no yeah i do i do most
of those things did you mention that i was a child actor that's also very important actor you didn't i did say actor i didn't specify what i prefer to be
known as a child actor not an actor but a child actor should i do my regular thing and stop us
so we can play the get to know us theme hit it get to know us um all right you're a child actor let's dive right in well probably my best role
was that you remember earnest earnest goes to camp yeah earnest and gremlins you remember earnest
and in my head i thought borg nine and but when you said earnest go to camp earnest i don't know
if he had a last name earnest of and verne Vern. Oh, you're right. Of course.
Well, it shows how much research I did
as a child actor because I played Ernest
as a child in one of his late
straight-to-DVD films called
Slam Dunk Ernest. I have a copy
of Slam Dunk Ernest at my house. You do? Yeah, of course I do.
Are you kidding? Why would I say that?
It's got
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
in it. Why do you own own that i uh for a long time
hosted a comedy show where i would give away you know weird odds and ends yeah i would find
movies i actually have it on vhs wow i'm sure it went straight to vhs i have it on dvd so they did
yeah it was that popular because he gets some magic shoes that help him uh be awesome i
can't i don't think i've ever watched the entire thing because i am in the very first scene that's
a black and white scene and they're like earnest somehow gets a hold of the basketball they're like
earnest don't throw it don't do it and then i throw it and chaos ensues yeah because it probably
went into like a thresher and then one of the pieces hit a grandma who dropped her lemonade
that fell on a dog that's exactly what happens pieces hit a grandma who dropped her lemonade that fell
on a dog that's exactly what happens i hit the grandma she falls and hits a man and then it goes
into a store and drives a car like all this crazy stuff yes it's a and that's me what do you call
those machines that one thing leads to another the rube goldberg uh mouse trap um so that's amazing
so how old were you i I was 12 or 13.
And they didn't even audition me.
They just cast me from photos, because I looked enough like him.
And then on set, they were like, you know how to do Ernest.
And I was like, no.
That's in every kid's back pocket.
Well, the director had, like, three simple steps.
He was like, okay, drop your mouth like this, and then open your eyes a little bit wide,
and roll them in a circle and then tilt
your head upwards and i was like perfect and i was that's what i did and i was earnest so uh
how did when you were a kid you wanted to be a child actor or your parents did you have a stage
mom a little bit i was a hyperactive kid that was like trouble and so someone was like put him in
acting so they put me in acting classes some people would also say put him in track and field you know but they were like he's you know clearly no good for
track and field he's a little weird creature so they put me into acting and uh the rest is history
as they say that's outstanding so was that the first was that your first role no no i was in
some commercials what was the first thing you did the The first thing I did was a BC Lotto commercial in which I was this nerdy kid in the 60s who's about to win a soapbox derby and then he loses.
And then it says, all his life, Seymour Meckler came close.
And then you see Seymour Meckler at different ages losing.
And then at the very end, he wins the lottery and I am his kid.
Oh, okay.
That's awesome.
So you played both Seymour Mackler and the son of Seymour Mackler.
Yeah, which is a common thing.
Would you put that on your resume as both roles?
Both roles?
No, no, I don't think so.
I would.
Yeah, Seymour Mackler and Seymour Mackler Jr.
Yeah.
Wow. I would. Yeah, Seymour Meckler and Seymour Meckler Jr. Wow.
So you did ads.
You did movies.
Did you do any like – I know you were in Kitchen Party.
Yeah, I was in Kitchen Party.
Which is one of my all-time faves.
That's my real – is it really?
Yeah, because Gary Burns is – he's like – I'm from Calgary.
Okay, so he's like your local hero.
So he's kind of like a local legend in Calgary.
And Sarah Strange is a friend of mine. Okay, so he's like your local hero. It's kind of like a local legend in Calgary. And Sarah Strange is a friend of mine.
Okay, yeah.
And yeah, but I didn't know her at the time when I enjoyed the film.
I just thought, what a neat film.
It's a movie about a kitchen party.
Scott Speedman's first film?
It was during the height of Scott Speedmania.
Well, it was the beginning of Scott Speedmania.
Remember when they got off the plane?
Scott Speedman?
Actually, the real beginning of Scott Speedmania is he did a...
Remember when Much Music used to have those video booths?
He did one of those, and he was like,
I want to play Robin in Batman and Robin.
And everyone was like, you're so cute.
And then he got an agent, and now he's famous.
Now, is he still famous?
Yeah, he's in those Underworld movies.
I think they're going to do several Underworld straight-to-DVD movies.
Was he in Final Destination at any point, Scott Speedman?
No, no.
He's too big, I think.
Was he in something else?
Felicity.
Oh, he was on Felicity!
Yeah, he was a love interest.
He was the one with the big, bushy, long hair, right?
Yeah, and when he cut his hair, the ratings went down.
The show went down the toilet.
Now, contracts actually have Felicity hair clauses.
Do they call them Felicity hair clauses probably not but that's what it's an
industry like a fhc is this guy does this contract get an
fhc yeah which for the purposes of this contract will be known as
fred clause the finer of the clauses um so you were in you were in kitchen
party i looked i went on imdb there is no mention of your work in Slam Dunkers.
My IMDb page is spotty.
There's a bunch of stuff not on there.
They don't check out...
Two of my credits appear
on some guy named Graham
Clark who was kind of a stuntman
slash actor in the 70s.
And two of my credits are on his page.
So he did nothing between
the years 1987 and 2006
and then suddenly had his own comedy special on The Comedy Dark.
Well, we have films that we've made on there
and they've added actors that weren't even in them.
And we can't get them to remove them.
We're like, we made this film.
That actor, there was no burglar character.
Get rid of that.
And then it's still on there.
There's no burglar character.
We made a movie starring one person and they added some guy like damien someone or other who was played the burglar
and we're like no no no and then you looked at the script and you were like that was what the
script was missing there should have been a burglar god i only stole hamburgers
i think that imdb is maintained by like old man with a chair and a broom that he just
points at a giant supercomputer, and there's a screen door and a sleeping dog.
Is that about right?
I don't think that's probably the case.
Are you sure?
I think they're owned by Amazon.com.
Yeah, they are.
Or possibly Google's on.
But there's some interesting stuff going on over at IMDb.
They've got weighted rating systems.
I don't know if you've ever looked, but the rating system, if you click on the actual votes, is totally different.
What does that mean?
And there's like some people's votes way more than other people's, and I'm not sure how they decide this.
Oh, like somebody maybe who votes a lot might have more sway?
Yeah, maybe someone who votes a lot or someone who they know is Roger Ebert or something like that.
His is rebert
at AOL.com.
That's how they figure it. Rebert.
So are you...
There's a bunch of roles. Do you
act anymore? I saw your
short film.
My own film was the last thing I've acted in
and probably maybe the last thing ever.
So this is your Ron Howard moment?
Are we witnessing your retirement?
No, no.
Do you want to make it public?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no, I'm not retiring.
But starring in your own film is a bad idea.
I will say that.
Seems like it would be really, really difficult.
It's difficult and it's not fun. But not as bad as editing your own film is a bad idea i will say that seems like it would be really really difficult it's difficult and it's not fun you're not as bad as editing your own film editing your
own film just is like you're too lazy at that point you're like i don't care it's 20 minutes
who cares but actors can afford to be lazy actors can afford to be lazy damn right sitting on the
better than overacting just sort of underacting it's good actually yeah doesn't uh don't actors get praised
for the underacting thing they're like oh just his stillness lit me on fire well that's a classic um
eisenstein should we go into some film history here yeah sure we could blow it up eisenstein
did this i think it was eisenstein what's eisenstein's first name sergi something like that okay so take this with a grain of salt everybody
somebody in the early days of cinema had a still image of an actor and then they juxtaposed it
against food and then everyone was like he looks so hungry this guy is a genius and then there was
a baby and he was like he's a pedophile it's amazing and then there was etc etc but it was all the same photo so it
goes to show yeah that's like uh what was that the heart wants what it wants the bill murray movie
uh broken flowers yeah yeah and you know bill murray stares at a lot of stuff in that movie
like he does a lot of long stares that was i can't remember it was either my dad or one of my
friends i was like do you like the movie he's like yeah bill murray stares at a lot of stuff
like that's the entirety and then i watched it that is the
bulk of that movie but bill murray staring is kind of an amazing thing to watch oh yeah because
you're like oh bill murray's thinking so many funny things that's why i care yeah look at the
restraint yeah he's amazing he's holding it all in oh i it's the singers.
Dave, let's get to know you a bit.
What's been going on Dave Shumka-wise?
Well, this week I celebrated a birthday of my own.
Yeah.
Happy 27th? Eight.
Eight.
28.
Old man Shumka.
Yeah.
It ain't cool to be doing a podcast anymore.
No, yeah, you've grown out of it.
I'm actually announcing my retirement.
No, and that was good.
My family took me out for all-I-could-eat sushi.
Did you eat all you could eat?
Roughly all I could eat.
Nice.
And Korean barbecue.
Nice.
Wait, you went to a Korean barbecue and sushi restaurant?
Yes.
All in the same night?
No, but generally that means bad sushi.
Yeah, the sushi actually wasn't great, but...
Right.
Oh, the gyoza.
The gyoza?
Mm.
And then, but the big thing, my dog, Grandpa, he might be a genius.
He had this circle.
He found an essay written by Grandpa.
Why I hump.
And it was largely
spelling error free. It was why we hump.
It was macrocosmic.
He's had this circle of
Naga hide or Ra hide, one of the hides.
Yeah.
And he, it was in a circle.
We called it his donut.
And he's had it for like two years, never particularly been interested in it.
Then last night he just went crazy on it.
And he, it's no longer a circle.
He made an incision.
And now it's shaped like a G.
And we think that he can spell his first name.
Spell his own name.
His first name.
What is Grandpa's last name?
Campbell.
No, Campbell.
Oh, really?
He kept his maiden name.
When he married Dave.
Happy birthday and happy
genius days for Grandpa.
Maybe he was spelling genius.
That's the other option.
I'll just have to wait
another however many years it takes
him to spell another.
You gotta get another one of those circles right away
and see if he can make a Q somehow.
Yeah, because there's really only
a handful of letters are circle-based.
It's true. Most of them can be done with a digital
clock, though. For instance, boobs.
Boobs. Or boobless.
Or a calculator. Calculator, yeah, boobless.
Have you given
Grandpa a calculator? We haven't.
You should give him a speaking spell.
See what he spells out when he steps on it.
Yeah, or a Ouija board.
Ooh!
Yes, he keeps saying yes.
He just keeps pointing at the letter G.
I don't think that he knows what that is.
Maybe it reminds him of some sort of food.
Like, it kind of looks like a curled up shrimp.
A G?
Right.
Is he a big fan of shrimp?
Or that rawhide G that he really liked?
He's like, get another one of these Robin Jeans.
This means something.
So that's, it was a
big week for Daddy. That's a huge week.
And you,
Graham, what's been going on with you?
I went to Calgary. Name it.
Home of my birth.
And, uh,
Did you go to dedicate the statue yeah yeah in downtown
calgary i uh my brother's company was having a christmas party and they wanted to hire a comic
and my brother called me and said do you know any like good comics in calgary and i was like
for whatever amount of money i'm like you if you fly me in, I'll do your Christmas party for very little because you're my brother.
So I went, and it was at this very fancy gallery, and it was very good.
The crowd was great, and it was free booze all night, and they paid me a little money, and it was fun.
But here's the thing.
My airport situation, coming and going, was very – like going i got i got the full check going through
security like the full check i've never been checked this detailed ever like i've had the pat
down and the wand but this guy this guy was all over he was in my underwear he was checking the
strap on my under the like the elastic what could you hide in the elastic in your underwear
uh i don't know dreams yeah that's where i keep my dreams so god knows where they are now Like the elastic? What could you hide in the elastic in your underwear? Dreams?
Yeah, that's where I keep my dreams.
So God knows where they are now.
And at one point, he was doing my hair.
What?
Yeah, he was feeling in my hair.
Did he use one of those Reiki things to massage you?
That would have been great.
No, it was just his hands.
So if anybody walking by at that second, it was just a guy massaging my head.
Has anybody ever hidden anything in an inch of strawberry blonde hair?
A bouffant hairdo, sure.
Yeah, then maybe I've got a cobra coiled in there ready to attack.
But yeah, like there's no, if you know my hair, like I think you do, you can't hide anything there.
know my hair like i think you do uh you can't hide anything there and then coming back this morning the lady went through my bag and i had all my stuff like in a plastic bag you know all the
liquids and stuff right because you travel with a garbage bag yeah yeah yeah everything was in a
garbage bag a clear bag and she took she went through the bag and seemingly randomly took like
my hair uh mousse stuff or whatever and put
it and she just looked at it and then put it in a separate little plastic bag it was like there you
go and she even did like the ta-da terrorism stomped out was she just doing um feng shui for
your bag uh oh like she felt like things were out of whack like maybe the energy of this moose belongs
in this bag and also yeah so is that weird have you ever had that happen before they take one
thing and then they put it in its own bag no that's happened to me three times what's wrong
with it's just to justify what they've done they're like okay i have to make it look like i
had a purpose in here yeah i mean but the toothpaste in its own bag. They've got to fire someone.
They're not going to fire me.
I'm doing something.
I saw a problem and I fixed it.
And also, I should say, I was telling Dave earlier,
I've been up since very early in the morning
because I was sleeping in the basement of my parents' house.
And my parents are both members of the musical Stomp.
So we're practicing at 5 in the morning this morning.
5 a.m. practice?
Yeah.
Garbage cans and sticks and whatnot.
My parents have a person living in their basement.
We've always had this.
A student or something?
A hobo?
A student.
Oh, a student.
And the way it works is they don't pay rent.
But my parents, they'll do...
Can I live in your parents basement
they do uh laundry my parents laundry and my parents what uh dishes and it used to be like
i have i come from a family of six and so it was like a big job to do our laundry and our dishes
and we oh my whole life we had people living in our basement for free, who that was their contribution.
Really?
That is really weird.
Yeah.
That is exceptionally weird.
I don't like strangers doing my laundry.
But now there's just the two of them,
so it's the easiest job just to do two loads of laundry a week.
Why don't you live in your parents' basement?
That's what I can't understand. That's a good point. Yeah, why don't you? Yeah. Can I live in your parents basement that's what i can't understand yeah that's
a good point yeah why don't you yeah can i live in your parents basement maybe i'll ask but no uh
people have actually complained to my parents that they stomped too loud early in the morning
uh but uh people who live for free have been complaining still i can't believe your parents
have the trust to give their dirty laundry to a stranger but and there have been so many horror like the worst lots of horrors
is that what you're gonna say have they horror stories i think about prostitutes
my favorite was this one we had uh one who barely spoke english but she was my parents don't like
getting young students to do it,
because they think that...
They'll ruin their precious clothing.
No, they're just too irresponsible.
They don't care about cold wash.
They don't care about separation.
They don't soften fabrics.
Yeah, there's no bounce.
Yeah, I agree with that.
But so they...
The kid I keep in the basement,
I don't trust him with my wife.
They always take someone who's in their 30s or 40s, a mature student, agree with that um but so they the kid i keep in the basement i don't trust them with they always
take someone uh who's in their 30s or 40s a mature student and uh once there was this this asian lady
who barely spoke english and she was the like just a really mousy studious looking lady and then one
day uh it turns out this lady had been trying to steal another woman's
husband. Whoa!
In your basement? No, at
in the lab at school.
Nice. And so this woman's
this husband
wait. The husband's
wife. Right. Comes over to our house
and
knocks on our front door
and the basement lady's not there
and in broken english this woman is trying to explain to us about how uh our baby mama drama
my favorite thing she kept repeating that phrase the thing that she kept repeating was
she said to me he who laughed last laughed best. Did this affair happen in ancient Japan?
I don't know.
It was a matter of honor.
It was clearly of futile interest.
It was in a James Clavel novel.
Is that an author?
I think it's almost...
It's James Cavill.
Oh, okay.
Not Clavel.
Oh, sorry.
I don't know.
Offensive of your parents to force
people, oh, you can live here for free. There's just one
catch. You just
scrub our clothing clean.
Yeah, well, we have...
So it's not somebody working it out
in a tub. Oh, yeah, you can stay here for free.
But clean the floor
with a pencil eraser.
We have facility. No, no. It's like, oh yeah, you can stay here for free. But clean the floor with a pencil. We have facility.
No, no.
Clean the floor with a pencil.
It's impossible.
It's just getting worse. It's just turning it up more.
Do it.
Just do it.
I find graphite to be so antiseptic.
So that's what's going on with my life.
When you next talk to your parents...
They're getting rid of the one right now.
Tell them they're bad people.
I could use a little upscale change in my life.
Yeah, all right.
Yeah.
No, it's not going to happen.
There's never been a man.
I'm like half a man.
Can you even do laundry?
I mean...
Oh, dude, I'm wonderful at laundry.
I'm an awesome folder.
I'm a great ironer.
Do your parents do a lot of ironing?
I don't know.
But you can't do dishes, can you?
Oh, dude, I...
You rinse with cold water.
I have a dishwasher. I don't know why... I don't know but you can't do dishes can you oh dude you rinse with cold water i i have a
dishwasher i don't know why these allegations are coming from i don't have a dishwasher and i
just met i'm sorry i wash with i wash it all by hand with hot water i'll have you well you know
my boyfriend just came out this is a big show My boyfriend insists on rinsing dishes with cold water.
He says that it
cleans them.
The soap comes off them better
in cold water.
Your boyfriend is lying.
He washes them in hot water and then with
cold water he removes the soap
scrupulously.
Am I wrong? He's wrong.
I think he's wrong. I don't think scruples come into it. Unless he was doing it scrupulously. Am I wrong? He's wrong. I don't think scruples come into it.
Unless he was doing it
unscrupulous.
Is it unscrupulous? Unscrupulous.
Not inscrupulous. It's invisible.
That's the word I was thinking of.
Have you ever
when you shave, have you ever shaved with cold water?
No.
I mean,
I can imagine it. I have. It's awful. I shaved with cold water? No. I mean, I can imagine it.
I have. It's awful. I shaved with cold water
in Haiti. Yeah, somebody told me
it was good to do that.
To shave with cold water. No, I've heard that.
But it's not.
Why were you in Haiti? Were you acting in Haiti?
No, I was shooting a documentary in Haiti.
About what? About Haiti.
That was actually the problem. The director didn't know
what it was about. He was like, just interview everyone. And and it was a shocking oh my god so you worked on one of those because i
had a friend who worked on a similar kind of documentary where it was just like hey let's
use this as an excuse i think it was indonesia and let's you know we'll get a camera and it'll
be really great and then when they came back with the footage it was all very random like it could
have been maybe a tourism video,
but there was no through line to it.
Well, that's great if you can hang out in Indonesia,
which sounds beautiful,
but Haiti is like, you know, a crazy...
We had two bodyguards with guns and...
And what was the point of the documentary supposed to be?
He wanted to show the positivity in countries
that have it really tough.
So he kept interviewing these horribly destitute people
and being like, but what's positive about your life?
And they were like, nothing.
I am wretched.
It was such a disaster.
I am wretched.
These women were like, I have nothing.
You are in my house.
It is made of nothing.
And he was like, yeah, but what keeps you happy?
And they were like, I think you misunderstood.
I'm not happy.
Yeah, on the weekends, what do you do? And they were like, what do you do for fun? I think you misunderstood. I'm not happy. Yeah, on the weekends,
what do you do?
How do you unwind?
How do you loosen up?
I eat dirt.
Which is true.
In Haiti,
they eat,
there's like a type of dirt
that they eat.
Oh.
What else is there to eat?
That's an oversimplification.
No, it's true, though.
Good Lord,
that's amazing.
How long were you there for?
Two weeks. Two weeks. and i'm not the type of
person who's very good at like going to foreign countries you know i'm i like things to be clean
i'm very yeah yeah yeah and haiti was a was a trying cold water on dishes clean that's the
style he is do you brush your teeth with warm water or cold water cold water cold water it'll
be crazy warm gets gets the dirt off better.
Oh, now see, this is all, now it's just, what is this, old wife talk?
Is that the name of this podcast?
Unless it's like boiling water.
I don't think it really.
It's warm.
It's just warm water.
It works that much better.
Nah, I don't know, bud.
I really disagree.
I've never.
Now that I think about it, there's no logic.
I just.
How come when I go to the dentist.
Of course there's logic.
You just talked about washing dishes with warm water.
Dishes with warm water dry quicker.
That's what I've learned.
No, no, no, no.
And also, they're dishes.
And we're talking about human enamel.
They're different.
They're fundamentally different.
I wear dentures.
They're ceramic.
So why don't you just boil them, you know?
Because I don't like to be without dentures.
Do they?
No, but they drop them in a solution.
Yeah, that's true.
Do they ever put them in the dishwasher, do you think?
I would if I had dentures.
I would streamline it.
When I was a kid, I used to wear baseball caps every day.
And my mother saw this thing in a magazine that was...
I know where you're headed.
A baseball cap-shaped thing that you put your baseball cap in this kind of grid
that's shaped like a baseball cap, and you put that in the dishwasher.
I just put them straight in the dishwasher.
Why would you need the grid?
So they hold their shape.
Oh, okay.
Here's what I...
This is from my youth.
You put them in the dishwasher.
You put them on a mild setting, washes the hat beautifully, and then if it bends the hat at all, you just put the curvature of the hat in a coffee cup to re-bend it.
Coffee cup, eh?
Yeah.
Coffee cup works better.
If I ever wear a hat.
Kids don't bend their hats anymore.
It's all flat now.
Yeah, flat hats.
And they leave a sticker on it.
And they'll maybe even bend it up, accentuate the flatness by bending it the opposite way.
And then they'll wear it askew.
Kids today are as weird as kids yesterday.
And possibly the kids of the future will be even weirder.
Kids today is akin to society crumbling.
It's always a constant.
Kids are getting worse.
And society is crumbling.
They're twisting.
They're doing the twist.
It started with the greasers, and we got kids with flat caps do you see the de-evolution of society
yeah there still are greasers i think uh yeah rockabilly kids yeah they're real trouble no
were you in your high school's rockabilly club no no i was in my high school's sexually ambiguous club it was a small group of me and
sack several small sack or sob we had a group of kids at our high school that were all kind of like
they they were kind of their informal gay and lesbian alliance and they called themselves the
tomatoes because a tomato that this was from them then neither a fruit
they're technically a fruit yeah that is exactly what my friend said he's like but aren't you guys
all fruits and i was like oh come on now that was uh uncalled for we all laughed but uh it was uh
but you said that out loud oh you didn't say that out loud he did he said it out loud but you're oh
come on now.
That was kind of your Bill Murray staring at stuff moment.
Yeah, in my head it was all, oh, come on now. Instead of staring, you were laughing.
Yeah.
But they hung out.
And gay bashing.
There was one stairwell, and they kind of like, that was their stairwell?
It was like, yeah, you're going to go take the tomatoes?
I don't think there were any openly gay in my high school.
Were there any openly gay stairwells?
No, no.
Well, I went to the biggest high school in Western Canada,
so it was quite a hodgepodge of different, you know,
all sorts of different ethnicities and backgrounds and situations and classes.
Because it was like some of the richest kids and then some of the poorest kids, but all
very intermingling.
It was very much like what a
TV show of high school
would be like. You know, there'd be like a super poor kid
and then a super rich kid trying
to coexist. That was actually what my
high school was like. This reminds me of my
third claim to fame.
Which is very embarrassing. What were the first two?
Well, the first one was Ernest. Which is huge embarrassing. What were the first two? The first one was Ernest.
Which is cute.
The second one I didn't even tell you
and I won't.
Do I know it?
That I was Pepito on Madeline.
Okay, go ahead.
Whoa, what?
No, no, no, go ahead.
No, no, no.
Just go back.
What does that mean?
Do you remember Madeline?
The cookie?
Madeline was a show
about little French girls.
Yes.
What was her name?
Is it the one where they wear like a little
They wear little hats
They're ruled by nuns
It's animated
Yeah
And they're ruled by a nun
Miss Clavel
Yeah yeah yeah
She wrote all those books about Japan
She has
That's her husband
They
Madeline had a little Spanish boyfriend
At the Spanish embassy in Paris
And that was my voice for one season.
Pepito!
When I was eight.
So you were Caillou.
He was the Caillou of his day.
I really was. There's actually a game
you can buy where I teach you
Spanish. You click on
objects and I say them in English
and then Spanish, only I don't speak Spanish.
So it's like
La Ruhas! on objects and i say them in english and then spanish only i don't speak spanish so it's like and they would just feed them to me phonetically they were like yeah
everything is a chimichanga to this kid
so that's my second claim your third claim my third claim to fame is actually
my third claim to embarrassment and that is that um they cast the
entire series breaker high i've mentioned this i've mentioned you've already mentioned this oh
you did mention it well i was mention it re-mention i was up for the ryan gosling role
and they had hired everybody but they were like we're not really convinced by this aj guy right
and so they didn't hire me you were you were okay so i was everyone else was hired and i was
like in limbo and i went to like cast readings and they were like was ry goss in limbo yet
ry goss i don't think they'd found yet and then they found ryan gosling and they're like this guy
is way better and likely to win oscars so they hired him that's why they hired most of the cast
and i didn't get it they really should have gone and done a checkup on the rest of the cast.
They could have hired...
What happened to the one who played the Southern Belle?
Isn't she on like a...
I think some of them have gone on to...
Soap operas?
Yeah, she seems like a soap opera.
One of them is on Reaper, I believe.
The fat one.
Yeah.
Jim Ryan Gosling's friend.
Tyler, yeah.
I know him.
The good buddy.
Yeah, so I didn't get that.
Was there a black guy? Yeah, of course. No, there was... I him. The good buddy. Yeah, so I didn't get that. Was there a black guy?
Yeah.
Of course.
No, there was...
I mean, of course not.
He was half black.
Okay.
Kyle Alisharan.
I also know him.
I know them because I met them all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What about the girl who was the nerdy girl who was interested in Ryan Gosling's character?
She's dead.
She is not dead!
I don't know.
She's living in my parents' basement.
She is embroiled
in a feudal affair.
Yeah, that's my horrifying
claim to fame. Alright, do you want to
move on to some overheards?
Yeah!
Overheard.
Do you...
I know overheard. Do you have one? I do have an overheard. Should I start? Overheard. The one that I like the most is that last year I was in Portland. If you've ever been to Portland, there's an amazing bookstore called Powell Books.
Yeah, it's great.
I think it's the biggest bookstore in the world or North America or something.
I've never been to Portland.
Yeah, well, I think the biggest bookstore in Canada is in Toronto because it's called
the world's biggest bookstore or Canada's biggest bookstore.
Oh, on its beds.
No, come on.
No, it's called the CN Tower.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
No.
That's the name of the place. It's Canada's largest bookstore. And it's called the cn tower do you know what i'm talking about no it's that's what that's the name of the place it's the canada's largest bookstore and it's huge really yeah i've
not been there really yeah i've been honest it's like right downtown which is a great bookstore
is it a bookstore no no i've never been to toronto but i know my favorite things about
toronto are honest ed's and Sam the Record Man.
That's not there anymore.
It's gone.
But if you ever see a movie that is shot...
Incredible Hulk.
Yeah, Incredible Hulk.
You see the Sam the Record Man thing.
Just two big spinning records is the neon sign.
That would have been their last role because now they're gone.
I can't...
That seems like a thing that they would have...
It's in the scene where Omar from The Wire is there.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And he says, no lines.
But it's also in the...
Were you there...
I was telling a story.
Yeah, that's fine.
All right.
This is how it works.
Our friend Taz Van Rassel has a great deck,
and in the summer he projects movies onto the next building.
I'm often there.
Did you see The Long Kiss Goodnight that time?
Of course.
For some reason, he decided that The Long Kiss Goodnight, the Gina Davis and Samuel L. Jackson vehicle, would be something that everyone...
Well, we were skeptical, but it was hilariously
bad. Yeah, it's great.
It's really Nazi.
Honest Ed's was in that one.
That's right. Doesn't Honest Ed's explode or something?
I don't think so. They couldn't afford that.
Somebody should do that. Honest Ed died recently,
actually. It was a sad day. Honestly?
Yeah.
Oh, I get it.
I remember... Insert? Can you insert a laugh yeah okay or you have a laugh
track that you add right an awooga okay oh do you have something no you i'm in the middle of a story
i know anyway in portland is the world's biggest bookstore or close to it called powell books
and i was walking through there in toronto i lived there um i was it called powell books and i was walking to toronto i lived there
um i was walking through powell books and i walked past this perfectly normal looking
middle-aged couple a man and a woman and the woman as i was walking past turned to the man and said
have you actually ever read a whole book
shocking wow these are the questions you should ask early on i think in the relationship
she just said it like of course no one's read a whole book right it's too long who's got that
kind of time i wonder do grown-ups and i i know when i say the word grown-ups, it sounds like I'm a child. But do people who aren't in school anymore ever buy the Coles Notes version of anything?
I read a Coles Notes version of something, but I didn't buy it.
Right.
But that was post-school that I did that.
Because I didn't actually want to read the book.
I'm sure people do.
Have you heard of this book?
There's some book out about how to sound like you've read about books that you've never read. It's like a whole course do it. Because I didn't actually want to read the book. I'm sure people do. Have you heard of this book? There's some book out about how to sound like you've read about books that you've never read.
It's like a whole course on it.
Oh, so it just gives you the theme and the thing and it's saying this during it.
Yeah, or just vague things you can say that make it sound like you've read any book based on the title.
Based on the title?
You decipher the title and you're like, Twilight is about...
The title is Twilight, Twilight is a vibe.
The title is Twilight, so
create a synonym for that word.
Yeah, I really like the bit with the
sunset.
And people are like,
oh yeah, sounds right.
Really did a lot of great duskery
imagery.
You or me, buddy?
I have one.
Oh, there we go.
Uh, this is, this is an overheard evolving myself.
It was at my brother's, uh, Christmas party.
And I was sitting at a table with a lot of, uh, there's a lot of bodybuilders that my brother works with.
They just kind of all, I don't know how they all ended up in the same workplace.
What does your brother do?
Uh, he works in an engineering firm.
all ended up in the same workplace what does your brother do uh he works in an engineering firm he's kind of like in the accounting department but a lot of these people are like recreational
bodybuilders right the accountants or the engineers whatever to make up for some sort
of nerdiness they have to become but dan dan my brother who was on the show previously
he he told me a really funny story this isn't the overheard but uh one day there
was like an electrician showed up to like just do some like maintenance in their office and uh my
brother like somebody said oh can you meet him he's in the lobby my brother just come back from
the gym so he was still in like his workout clothes and sweating it was like oh i'll take
you up to where you need to go and he they just happened to pass as they were walking down the
hallway all the bodybuilder types who are all wearing like shirts because it was a hot day it
was like friday casual friday and like the guy was just like uh as they walk past there's a guy
and then a girl another guy all just super ripped and he's like what do you guys do here like he
stumbled on like a justice league or something like genetic engineering yeah serums but one of
the larger gentlemen uh because i was
the only one at the table eating a vegetarian meal because i was a vegetarian i am a vegetarian
uh and the the guy across the table i thought i couldn't hear him he was saying the word meat
but i thought he was saying me so when he was saying he was like so do you have an
aversion to me do you not like me and i was giving me staring he was giving me this intense look and
i was like leaning over to my brother like well i don't know what he's saying and i think it's
asking you about your vegetarian meal but i honestly panicked he's like so what do you have
an aversion you got a problem with me balls yeah so uh he'd never met a vegetarian before he had no it
was quite the top of conversation that's because oh well this was in calgary this was in calgary
we went skiing in rebel stoke and my brother's a vegetarian and um we stayed at a bed and breakfast
and they served him a vegetarian dinner and people came to the table to see the vegetarian.
They were like, we just want to see the vegetarian.
Oh man, it was a scene.
They'd never seen one.
Yeah, like people...
You look just like us.
They were like, so you don't eat any meat?
And I was like, that is the meaning of the word.
And then they were like...
But they're mystified.
It's not that they're against it.
They're just like, but why wouldn't you?
There's so much meat to eat out there.
It's very good.
It's my favorite part.
And then all I had to do was say, well, I live in Vancouver.
And they all went, oh, okay.
Yeah, you're...
All right.
Does yoga.
Yeah, exactly.
The wet coast.
Something weird happens when you cross those mountains.
So that's kind of my overheard-ish.
Yeah, sure.
Dave, go ahead.
Last night I was at a party.
What? It sounds out of character.
No, it was a token appearance.
Hollywood Walk-On
by Dave Shulkin.
It was one of those parties where you're like,
we've got to stay for an hour. And when an hour was up,
it was like, we've got to sneak.
You walked in with an egg timer. We've got to stay for an hour. And when an hour was up, it was like, we've got to sneak. You walked in with an egg timer.
Tick.
We've got to sneak out without telling the hostess.
This was what comedian Seth Perry would call a grown-up party.
Yeah.
People brought their babies.
So it wasn't a party at all.
No.
Did you bring Grandpa dressed up in a sweater?
This is our baby.
We really ought to.
And just carry him the whole time?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And treat him like he's a baby? He's not, though. He's a full-grown dog. No, yeah. up in a sweater this is our baby and he did that thing and just carry him the whole yeah yeah and
treat him like he's a baby uh he's not though he's a full-grown dog no yeah he's a man
uh it's all in his essay i overheard a pardon it's in his essay
we uh so i overheard this conversation going on with four people,
and they were talking about the movie Shark Water.
Yeah, I saw it.
Which one is that?
I don't know.
It's a documentary.
It doesn't matter?
It doesn't matter.
Okay.
There were all women.
One of the women, I think, made assumptions about the other three women in the conversation
when she said,
Oh, it'll change your life.
You'll never eat shark fin soup again.
And, of course, all three other women went, I've never had shark fin soup.
Is that the one?
Is it very sympathetic towards the sharks?
Is it directed by the cheerleader from Heroes?
It's directed by this attractive young guy,
and there's all these photos, shots of him
swimming with sharks.
And it's really indulgent and you start to hate him by the end.
Nice. But it has a pretty good message. Apparently
shark fin soup is shockingly popular
in some countries. Yeah, and apparently
flavorless.
Shark fins have no flavor
and they
need to gain the power.
It's some sort of superstition surrounding eating a shark fin. Mostly it's just they they it's but it's like they had to gain the power yes it's like some sort of like uh superstition surrounding eating a shark fin but mostly it's just to like see this guy
swimming in the water and look like loving and they never replay the the shark fin episode of
iron chef because of it really i don't know if that's why i just haven't seen it in a while
um uh what was the shark movie with the two people who were just like uh i thought you were gonna say
what was the one where it was uh the animated one with will smith as a voice because that's
the one i've been trying to think of yeah what is that shark's tail yeah yes uh what's the one
where the shark is really big its name is jaws no no jaws three that's the one d deep lucy uh no what is the one with the two people
who are stranded is it deep lucy no that no no deep lucy is sam l jackson and there's two people
treading water for 90 minutes conversation oh oh where they yeah and they cold uh cold mountain
cold no open water open water that movie is chilling is it yeah okay all 88 minutes of it
all 88 minutes of treading water it's yeah that would be fucking really hard to watch yeah like
can you imagine but not hard to watch in a beer fest way don't get me wrong but it is hard to
watch the room oh now that's, that's something that Dave mentioned.
He sent an email.
He said,
it's my friend, A.J. Bond.
And your dad's name is actually James Bond?
That's right.
That's incredible.
James Bond.
That's actually true.
But he goes by Jim.
Jim Bond.
Yeah, of course.
But whenever he pays with a credit card,
there's an inevitable bad joke.
And he's like,
actually, I'll take my business elsewhere.
Imagine my life. Imagine it. is an inevitable bad joke. And he's like, actually, I'll take my business elsewhere.
Imagine my life.
Imagine it.
But he does always wear a tuxedo,
which complicates the issue. He really kind of adds it both ways.
What does the J stand for in AJ?
Jeffrey.
But my brother's name is Jamie.
Jamie.
Because they wanted to name him after my dad,
but they didn't want to give him a life of misery,
so they gave him Jamie Bond, which is almost worse in some ways.
That sounds like a Nickelodeon knockoff of James Bond.
Jamie Bond!
Yeah, like Jamie Bond's coming to terms with life.
A techno song for some reason.
Do you remember James Bond Jr.?
No.
There was an animated show called James Bond Jr., but the character...
Because James Bond was a user of women, and apparently always pulled out, James Bond Jr. was his nephew.
Right.
So it wasn't him as a child, which I guess makes sense, because he wouldn't have Jr.
Right.
It was his nephew who was named after his uncle.
That's weird.
And also Junior.
My nephew is named James,
but he doesn't have the last name Gib.
He has the last name Gibbs.
Wait, if it's his nephew, Junior doesn't work at all.
That's what I was just going to say.
Unless you have two sons named James.
Yeah.
Have you guys seen the new James Bond?
No. Is it Bond? No.
Is it good?
No, it's a character study.
Have you seen it? Yeah. Oh, okay.
I hate character studies.
It's not of James Bond. It's true.
I like character assassinations.
Do we have anything else, or shall we move on?
Oh, no, we have a listener overheard.
Yes. Oh, good God. And we also have
a visual overheard, which is the first time that's ever happened.
Let's do the listener one first.
Okay.
Hi, Stop Podcasting Yourself.
This is Anthony from New York, and I just wanted to share an overheard I had the other day.
I was on my way to work on the train, and there was a group of girls who were probably 14 or 15 years old
being very loud and obnoxious, so I was looking forward to getting off the train
and when I got off at my stop they followed behind me and that's when I
heard one of them say if he has a head full of curly brown hair he's Jewish and
yeah I just love this certainty she had you know like when it rains it's water uh there's no doubt in this girl's mind
about this uh correlation and anyway just wanted to share that with you guys uh love the show uh
thanks thank you yeah thanks so if he has a head of curly brown hair he's jewish that's true though
isn't it uh no especially if when you're looking it. I'm a quarter Jewish, and look.
Unless he's black. No, you have wavy brown hair, though.
Exactly.
A quarter curl.
A quarter curly.
That's a quarter curly.
Yeah, totally.
You lucked out.
That was Anthony.
I believe he's the same person who...
Sent us a Photoshop dollar...
Was it a dollar bill or a hundred dollar bill?
A hundred dollar bill, because we had talked about...
I think we were talking about counterfeit money with John Doerr.
And we said that, oh, that the money would have a picture of Ultimate Warrior on it?
Right.
And he sent us a photoshopped hundred dollar bill with the Ultimate Warrior on it.
And it strangely looks pretty good.
Like, looks about right.
Is anybody excited about the movie The Wrestler?
Because I am super excited.
You've seen it?
Yeah, in Toronto.
How was it?
Awesome.
Please tell me.
It's awesome? Yeah. What is it? Please tell me. It's awesome?
Yeah, Mickey Rourke is frightening.
It's the new Aronofsky film.
Yeah, Mickey Rourke is like an 80s era wrestler, kind of like the Ultimate Warrior, Jake the Snake Roberts type.
Well, I've never been a wrestling fan, so I don't know that background.
Okay, but that's from what I can tell.
Wait, wait, wait.
Are you sure you're gay?
Yeah.
Wait a minute. That's it.'re gay? Yeah. Wait a minute.
That's it.
Hilarious.
No, he plays this roided out, washed out wrestler, which only Mickey Rourke could play realistically.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Who else could?
I don't know.
Honestly, I don't know.
Gene Simmons.
Gene Simmons.
You're right.
Yeah.
But he wouldn't be good.
That's the problem. He's too paunchy. He doesn't have the chops. No, it don't know. Gene Simmons. Gene Simmons, you're right. But he wouldn't be good. No, he can't act.
He doesn't have the chops.
No, it's very good.
Very different than the other.
It's not Requiem for a Dream.
It's definitely not The Fountain, thank God.
The Society doesn't need another one of those.
I liked The Fountain.
Did you?
No, I didn't see it.
I walked out of it.
Oh, here's a...
Talking about celebrities. Sure. I just just noticed this i was at the grocery
store before i came over here and there was uh there's a like a people magazine or star magazine
or or whatever and it has a picture of britney spears now and her in the future yeah and she
looks great um it had her like a like a year, you know when she had a little extra weight on her?
She looked better then, I think.
She looked like a human being that you could go have drinks with and be normal.
Because it showed her then, she's wearing a bikini, she's at some pool somewhere,
and it's just like a very grainy kind of, you know,
like what normal people look like when they have their picture taken.
And then versus her in this crazy cabaret uniform on some stage right i liked it when she had the extra
weight on her they i um am i wrong north america am i the one who's wrong apparently you're wrong
yeah you're my favorite was uh what was the song she had a little while ago um you want a piece of
me again oh yeah i actually like that and it had the line
uh she's too fat no she's too thin nobody has ever said she was too thin oh there are celebrities
that people say she's never gotten too thin but britney is not one of them but i can't believe
her song was factually incorrect it's crazy she didn't write it involved in a circus i was just
listening to circus the song on the way over here.
It really shatters the prism of...
Actually, as I was listening to it, I was thinking, am I gay?
Because I don't like this.
I should love this.
All right, let's see the...
I just wanted to say one more thing.
I saw on the cover of, I think it was The Enquirer, it was like Michael J. Fox drama.
Oh, it's like him asleep or something it
was a picture and he was blinking yeah and it said like michael j fox passes out at yeah he
was blinking and his tongue was out of his mouth so he's like he's got ms i mean no parkinson's
parkinson's so uh brad c sent in a photo no last names no. Good. I don't know if he wants
his last name said.
A photo that he took
in Ontario.
It's of a Grand Caravan.
We'll post it on the blog page.
Yeah.
But it's at the back
of a Grand Caravan.
The license plate
is a vanity plate
that says,
One T-Bone.
And the slogan on the back
reads,
Country Meats.
And then across where it says, Grand Caravan, it says, Dave's Homemade Beef Jerky.
And then on the right side, it says, Snowblowing Services.
It's kind of a hodgepodge.
It's everything.
I actually read Country Moats.
And I was like, wow, Country Moats and snow blowing?
Amazing.
Keep out those hillbillies.
They do everything.
With a good quality country moat.
Get your drawbridge fixed.
Yeah, when I was a kid, I remember actually one of our basement ladies.
I couldn't think of a Halloween costume.
One of our basement ladies?
I just remembered what you were talking about.
I couldn't think of a Halloween costume.
And she suggested being a jack-of-all-trades and just having a bunch of crap on you.
And that's what the back of this minivan looks like.
Is that what this minivan is going as this Halloween?
A jack-of-all-trades.
I saw on our way home today before the podcast, Abby and I were driving.
And we saw a bumper sticker that said, Thelma and Louise live.
Oh, I've seen that.
But I read it.
Thelma and Louise live.
Yeah, the double album.
At Budokan.
Are we announcing the official American listener?
No.
We haven't really decided it yet.
Are we going to drag this out another week?
Yeah, sure.
Let's drag it out. We'll be right back!
Welcome back.
We were watching a bit
of Transformers, but only a little bit.
And we established between Dave and I that we
both don't think that Megan Fox deserves
all the attention that she's getting. But her
relationship with Sheila Buff is an
anachronism. Oh, yeah?
Which just wouldn't happen. Define it.
An impossibility. It's an impossibility it
does have a bit of a badass streak and i think that's what she likes about brian austin but
when they say about badass it's that he has acne on his ass like it's not that he's a badass he
broke his hand by drunken driving yeah and he which is so badass he got uh who was once arrested
for being drunk also so he's a drunk.
Yeah.
Which is enough.
Which is pretty badass.
I guess.
If you're rich and drunk, you're a badass.
If you're poor and drunk, you're Graham Clark.
Well, yeah.
No, currently you're Graham Clark.
Or Dave Shumka.
He's been drinking, too.
Peoples.
Yeah, but just on the podcast.
Also, we're drinking this beer called Checkmate, which is spelt like Czechoslovakia, mate.
Right.
I don't think it was made in Czechoslovakia, but...
But it was made by Czechoslovakians.
Oh, weird.
It was made in Slovakia.
Was it?
No.
Damn.
Czechoslovakia doesn't exist.
We have a...
It's an anachronism.
It's an anachronism.
A listener named Jason who actually wrote in a question to us.
We don't get a lot of questions because we don't have a lot of answers.
But I thought this was appropriate
because we do actually have...
Most of our mail that we get is,
you guys are the greatest, etc.
Here's a picture of our genitals.
We got a horrible review on iTunes
not but a week ago where a guy
wrote in, he posted a review
on iTunes saying
something about
Canadian content. Yeah, he said this is the kind
of crap that we get for having
Canadian content. On iTunes?
Yeah, we don't have anything to do with
Canadian content. I don't think iTunes is governed
by that. You guys don't have enough American guests, alright?
That's the problem. We've had two.
He said, not funny, just crap.
Just crap,
I think was the final word on it.
And he was a big fan of BBC podcasts.
But it was really strange that he lumped us in with Canadian content, because we just do a podcast.
Yeah, we are not governed by the CRTC.
We're not getting paid to do this.
It's like shitting on somebody for flying a kite badly.
This is our hobby that we do, and somebody putting a bad review is really like it's against the point of everything in the universe.
But I would like to point out that we are featured in the Canadian iTunes Best of 2008.
And why wouldn't we?
Congratulations.
Somebody up there likes us.
By up there, I mean heaven.
And by heaven, I mean iTunes.
This is from Jason.
I believe he's an American.
He said, even though change is coming, my girlfriend and I have become disillusioned with life in America and specifically Texas.
We've been thinking about moving to Canada, maybe Vancouver or Toronto.
My degree is in film and would like to work in that industry.
And my girlfriend would like to go to film school.
What do you think about Americans immigrating to Canada?
What's the quality of life like are people nicer there and are there good opportunities in the film biz in canada that's
from jason and you've worked in the film biz i've been to film school you've worked you've been an
editor you've worked we've all kind of worked somewhat in the film business but i figured this
would be a good a round table this would be a good group to ask that question to. Hollywood North roundtable? First of all,
they ask,
are we nicer here?
Can't comment.
I don't know if we're nicer.
Vancouver, I wouldn't say.
I'm not nicer.
We're nicer.
I don't think Vancouver
is as nice
as some cities in Canada.
It's more like
we pretend to be nicer,
but actually,
we quietly judge you.
That's true.
We're kind of like
the Japanese in that way.
We're very nice,
but we are very disappointed
in your behavior,
but we won't tell you. And the Japanese here are like extra Japanese in that way. We're very nice, but we are very disappointed in your behavior. But we won't tell you.
And the Japanese here are like extra Japanese.
Yeah.
That and that.
Not a word.
Not a word either way.
But what do you think?
What do you guys think?
Well, you know, he should know that we are now more conservative governed than his country.
That's true.
But maybe that wasn't his worry.
No, I think he was talking about...
He said that change is coming.
So when did you receive this?
After the election?
Moments ago.
Yeah, this was only a couple days ago.
So yeah, he knows...
I think maybe the climate in America is...
I mean, he's living in Texas.
He's living at the epicenter.
Do you think he might be Tejano singer Selena?
Well, I don't
know if he's her or the ghost
of her. It's funny that that's
the only Texas celebrity I could think of.
Yeah, it's weird. Maybe it's Tony
Romo.
Maybe it's Tony Romo. Ooh, famous for
rips.
I would suggest Toronto.
I think... Toronto I think
What would you say?
Toronto is the epicenter of film in Canada
But Vancouver does have a good
Location industry
So if you want to be a shitty PA
On shitty American shows
But if you want to be a shitty only
If you're going to be a stellar PA
If you want to be a good PA you've got to go to Toronto
What are your options for film schools?
In Toronto and Vancouver?
You went to VFS.
I went to VFS. Eh, it wasn't that. I wouldn't endorse it.
You went to UBC. I went to UBC.
Which no longer exists? No, no, it's back.
They restarted it better than ever.
UBC was a good program. I recommend UBC.
And I hear the Ryerson film program is
quite... That's in Toronto.
So in Vancouver, I would go to UBC.
I went to BCIT. York has a good film
program in Toronto. Everyone gets a job
at BCIT. Yeah, that's true.
Whether we keep it is up to us.
Whether it's good is
unlikely. I think I like Toronto a lot.
I like the city. I like the
people and I like the kind of
genuine pride
in the city that people seem to have i like
that uh it gets cold as shit there in the winter it snows a lot uh people from texas not used to
that yeah i believe in texas they're famous for two things steers and ribs and ribs i mean the
question you have to ask yourself jason what was his name? I believe it's Jason
It's Jason, yeah
Vancouver is where you
relax
and Toronto is where you do things
so, you know, that's your
Is it my problem that I've lived in Vancouver
my whole life and I'm just too relaxed?
Yeah, because I'm pretty uptight
He is really uptight
but I don't think that's a day thing that's not a Vancouver thing relax? Yeah. Because I'm pretty uptight. Are you? He is really uptight. But,
I don't think that that has anything.
That's a day thing. That's not a Vancouver thing.
Okay, but if I moved to Toronto,
would I be more uptight? Yes.
Yeah, if you'd leave the house
even less. I would not love thy
neighbor. No, you'd have groceries
delivered to your house.
It's too cold to go out. Speaking of which,
my brother works at Amazon.ca
.com
and Amazon Fresh, their grocery
service, will get us
Graham Bumpers.
No! Really? What are Graham Bumpers?
They're a snack that
one of our... A breakfast cereal.
It's a breakfast cereal, but it could probably be
eaten as a snack, am I right? If you put it in a bowl?
With no milk?
The Graham Bumpers we call, the fans of the show are called Bumpers, and somebody found
a cereal called Graham Bumpers.
So those are the Graham fans?
I guess.
Do you think that they're, I imagine that most fans have a favorite.
Some are Graham Bumpers and some are Dave Bumpers.
I imagine they're mostly Graham Bumpers.
You should do a vote.
I imagine they're mostly Dave Bumpers.
That's how we keep the equilibrium
the tension.
It's mostly sexual.
We're like Mulder and Scully that way.
But here's a final word.
If Jason
and his girlfriend who wants to go to film school
if they want to move, you say Toronto.
I would say Toronto too.
If they want to do stuff.
If they want to relax, come to Vancouver.
So if you want to be in a
climate that's really rainy,
pretty relaxed,
kind of grumpy...
You'll get less work in Vancouver.
Yeah, exactly. So there'll be more time to relax.
Does it cost more to live in Vancouver?
Yeah, probably.
Then you probably should live in Toronto.
Yeah, I would say live in Toronto because they've got a great subway system.
And I really do think there's like a civic pride there that Vancouver's lacking.
But Vancouver's lacking a civic pride.
You know, you live here, you've been to Toronto, you know.
Well, I don't have civic pride, so maybe that's illuminating right there.
Yeah, see?
What do you mean by civic pride?
I think Vancouver, our pride is...
In Vancouver, we feel inferior.
We're like, man, we're not Toronto.
In Toronto, they're like, yeah, we're Toronto.
We're Toronto, yeah.
It's a constant debate.
Yeah, constant.
But I think on the parameters that you set out,
film industry, girlfriend who wants to go to film school...
Dumper.
Canada.
Dumper.
No, no, no, no.
Don't listen to Dave at all.
Dave believes in true love.
And she's not the one.
He would object to that.
Is she your soulmate, Jason? Ask yourself that.
I think you need to look in the mirror.
And by the mirror, I mean her fat face.
You guys could always go to Austin.
Maybe they're already in Austin.
But I hear Austin's a great film town.
I have a feeling this guy's done with America.
Yeah, he doesn't want to go see...
He's the opposite of that Paul Simon song.
He's not looking for America.
He's looking to get out of America.
You were supposed to move out of America four years ago, though.
That was the time.
Eight.
Eight years ago, maybe.
Yeah, but also...
I don't know.
Anyways, hopefully something about what we said in the last eight or so minutes were...
Take a bus ride with Paul Simon and look for America.
Yeah.
Play games with the faces.
Yeah.
Careful of that guy with the gabardine suit.
I heard he's a spy.
Let's bust off some time travel talk.
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na. I'm going back in time. Yay! Travel Talk.
I'm going back in time.
Yay!
That theme song, I believe, was written by Pink.
In the future.
There may be some confusion on our Facebook group as to whether we wrote that or Pink wrote that. I'm going to give Pink full credit, or at least the people she hired to write that song.
Which was us in the past when we traveled back there and wrote that song.
Or maybe that lady from For Non Blondes.
Oh, the one that wears the crazy hat and the goggles?
No, the drummer.
Anywho.
So, have you heard our time travel segment?
No.
It's pretty easy.
It's literally, if you had one opportunity to travel forward or backwards, what would you do?
And now, this is interesting because your film follows a very kind of...
Let's talk briefly about your film.
Let's talk time travel.
Let's talk about your film.
Your film, Hirsute.
Hirsute.
Hirsute.
Hirsute?
You can watch it.
You can watch it online now.
We'll post a link to it on the blog
Or possibly
Can we embed it?
Is there a chance of embeddation?
You can embed it via Vimeo
Yeah, we'll do it
It's a film about
You play it yourself
I play it
You play a character named Kyle
But you don't hear Kyle anywhere in the film We just invented that you play it yourself. I play it. No, you play a character named Kyle.
You don't hear Kyle anywhere in the film.
We just invented that.
He's working on time travel. He's trying to invent a time machine.
But then this is the thing.
If I can invent a time machine,
then why don't I just come back in time
to right now and show myself how to invent it
so I don't have to go through all this bullshit
of inventing it. So that's his plan.
But it fails. And the future no it succeeds it succeeds once and then it succeeds
he has invented time travel and well no that's not a spoiler it's the it happens that's not a
spoiler well the he fails like you got that and then but then he appears appears to explain why it failed and how it succeeded differently.
And then he tries to have sex with himself.
And then, yeah, the ultimate question is, would you have sex with your youthful self?
How much older is older Kyle?
It's never made clear.
Right.
But he has...
I think he's a year or two older at least.
Maybe more.
But he's waxed.
He's waxed his body.
He laughs. He has a fake
laugh. Right. There's something weird about it.
There's many layers in this 14 minutes
of film.
And it was a very well done
film. It was very like...
I was watching the first couple
minutes and I'm a time travel
junkie. Like if there's
anything... I'm always interested in
what school of time travel
right people kind of come from right and once uh you did a showing of this movie uh where you did
it as a you did you showed your movie and then you showed back to the future too that's right
which is so is that the the school of time travel that you follow no you're the opposite well back
to the future one is my big inspiration, and that is because
that movie has no logic.
Back to the Future 1
posits a circular logic,
but yet things can change.
They almost have sex in it.
Or I'm like Michael J. and Michael J.
Michael J. and Doc Brown was my match-up.
It's all inspired by Back to the Future 1.
But I also am a big fan of Primer
and a bunch of other 12 Monkeys.
So 12 Monkeys, your Terminators.
See, 12 Monkeys is exactly not my theory.
Because 12 Monkeys is totally circular.
Like, no matter what happens, it happens.
No matter what happens, it always happens exactly the same.
And then Terminator follows the, you can change the future, but everything that you change ends up...
What is the Terminator theory?
Terminators, I'm not entirely clear, but my understanding is you can change it,
but there's certain fated things that are going to happen anyway.
So it's like, somebody's going to drop a nuclear bomb.
So they keep going back to try and stop the robot revolution, but...
The Robo-Rev.
The Robo-Rev. For purposes of this contract will got robo when they
go back though uh they seemingly still to this day in the terminator still have not avoided that
future in any way shape or form upcoming terminator 4 it is how do you feel about christian bale being
in two franchises at once i'm'm for it, except I'm...
Only if he does the Batman voice in both.
My name is John Connor.
I gotta go somewhere.
In this version, it's an alternate future.
So there's no Arnold Schwarzenegger in it.
It's a different future, but similar.
He's the Governator, right?
The Gobernator, isn't it?
I'm lost. Okay, but in in terminator you can
change the future in 12 monkeys you can't change the future is set no matter what you do will
eventually lead to the preordained same thing yeah uh but you know the back to the future thing you
can change a thing and then but then it shoots off it creates a new time it's not
but but it's a very similar in terminator it seems to suggest it creates a similar time
yeah back to the future though change like because you could have future it wants it both
ways you can change things but it's also circular yeah and there's also two lines of a future right
like when in back to the future too there's regular 1985 and
then alternate 1985 where he gets the book of scores and he marty mcfly can jump between the
two realities he doesn't he seemingly doesn't destroy the one reality he can only jump between
them by stopping biff from changing the future. But then does he destroy that alternate 1985 where Biff is rich by going back and editing it?
So that 1985 doesn't exist anymore.
Right.
Depending on how you conceive of it.
Even though he lived in it.
Okay, stop it.
Stop it.
I am zoning out.
My conception is that you can change things because every time you travel through time, it starts a whole new timeline.
So it's almost like a whole new dimension.
So given that, given that that's your favorite theory of time travel, you have one chance to go back or forward.
Wow, this was complex.
And we've also made the stipulation that you can move through space and time.
So you don't just go to 2,000 years in the future
and you're in your own house.
You can kill Hitler.
Yeah, if you want to kill Hitler, you can kill Hitler.
If you want to kill future robo-Hitler, you can kill him.
See, this is easy.
I would go back to maybe...
Well, it's hard to say.
Probably maybe when I was 30.
Most people say right before recording this podcast.
That is the going joke. No, that's not what I was 13. Most people say right before recording this podcast. That is the going joke.
No, that's not what I would do.
I would go back to when I was about 12 or 13.
I'd just grab myself by the shoulders and be like,
You're gay, you fucking idiot.
You would out yourself to yourself.
I would out myself to myself.
I'd be like, you know it somewhere.
Just get on with it.
So, do you think that would have helped young gay AJ to have some strange man that vaguely resembles him shaking him?
Well, I would have then had sex with my 13-year-old self just to get things started.
Yikes-a-daisy.
Here's the...
The rub?
Here's the rub.
So, is that...
Yeah, would that have helped would that have helped a young um that's very hypothetical what is what is that sent you into the closet forever you're like some
crazy man attack me well that's that's almost what my film is about though is you meet your older
self and you are totally depressed by what you see so if i went
back to when i was 13 and said you're gay i would probably at 13 be like no and i am not about to
turn into you i'm gonna get so much pussy so lame i'm defiant my theory is that you are you are
destined to find your older self disappointing.
Oh man, I'm disappointed. I know
that my younger self would be disappointed.
No, actually, that's not true, I think.
Because I just wore the same shirt for three days
in a row, and I know my younger self would think
that was awesome. Because that's what I used to think
was awesome when I was a kid. What about
your George Cloonies, your Brad Pits,
your Oceans.
Your Oceans crew. Your Casey Affleck, your Brad Pitts, your Oceans. Your Oceans crew.
Your Casey Afflecks, your Scott Cohns.
They seem like pretty awesome people who would, like, a young George Clooney, seeing older George Clooney, would have been like, hey, I got it pretty figured out.
But he'd also be like, you're kind of a douche.
Don't you think young George Clooney was already awesome?
Maybe you're right.
And he was like, hey, I turned out awesome.
Just stay the course of awesomeness. Has George Clooney won an Oscar yet? You know, he's probably like, man...
Is that a big thing? Yes, he has.
For, I believe,
something having to do with
Michael Clayton? Nope.
Good night and good luck.
I think he won an Oscar for that.
Did he? Yeah. Maybe supporting?
We'll have to look this up.
You'd think I would know that, but...
That sounds disputable.
No, because the Oscars are so mainstream.
I watch American films.
But I like that.
He's definitely picked out a specific time travel move.
No, I like...
We've talked a lot about Back to the Future 2,
and I was thinking about Back to the Future 3.
Yeah, I just watched it the other weekend.
Yeah, doesn't...
The message of that is that you should go back in time,
marry Mary Steenburgen,
get into steampunk,
and name your children Jules and Vern.
Yeah, I... Back to the future three seemed like it was
like wow we could do it was there was too many options yeah for that for the third one they
could have gone back they had to constrain it yeah because otherwise it could be a 17 part epic which
i would i'm in i would yeah we i don't think but do you want to hear my back to the future theory
yes because i mean this will take up the rest of the podcast
Yeah, Back to the Future theory
Well, Back to the Future tries to posit that it has this circular thing
Now, posit is a...
Is a word
It tries to claim
Suggest
No, it's what you say when you want somebody to stop a movie
So you can go to the bathroom
Well, the film is positing
Well, see, is pause it-ing.
Well, see, as you may
recall, at the end of the movie, he reappears
in 1985 and sees himself
get into the DeLorean and disappear.
Then he's like, Doc, don't die.
So then there would be another one of him.
Part one, okay. Right? There would be another one of him
showing up a second later. Exactly.
So when that one of him goes back
into the past, there should be two of him in the past.
And now that would have been the most badass sequel.
But then there was two of him in the past in Back to the Future 2.
Back to the Future 2, but it wasn't the same one of him.
But there was only one Elizabeth Shue.
That's right.
That's right.
And she wasn't in the first movie.
Although she wasn't in the first one.
Right, exactly.
That's why there was only one.
So you're saying that when he first goes back to
1955, that there
should have already been another guy. No.
Because it's not circular. So then there was
just one. But when he
goes back into the future and sees himself go
back again, that guy should have crashed
in to the
original him, and then they would have been like,
WTF? There's two of us?
And there could have been this whole great sequel with two Michael J.'s that's oh man and that's one that that's absolutely right
and see and i've watched as a kid and obviously you grew up with it as a kid as well and uh dave
as well and it's one of these movies i have the trilogy on vhs including the uh the making of making up with kirk cameron yeah all right yeah i uh watched
that movie probably i would say more times than any other movie i've seen that's for me it's that
thing you do for me for me it's aliens is it yeah really okay aliens is great but at some reason
back to future it's on tv it's over the years I'm pretty sure I've accumulated more viewings of that than any other movie.
And still, I'm still pointing out, what if this?
And then what if you did?
It's a great time travel.
It's the beauty of time travel.
Can this just be a time travel podcast from here on out?
I would like it to be.
Yeah.
But only if it somehow led us to actually time traveling.
Oh, man.
If we got experts in time travel, I remember watching a thing on like, I think it was Q6 TV, which was I think in Calgary.
It certainly wasn't here.
I watched enough TV to know that.
It was like Idaho.
And there was a whole story, like a 10-minute story about a guy who was making a time machine out of his house.
The whole place was covered in metal and foil.
He was just some crazy guy, but the news cameras were like...
A real guy.
Yeah, it was a real guy, but he was turning his house into a time machine.
He had some sort of really legitimate background.
He was like an MIT student.
And those people never go insane.
It's just not possible.
But this guy went uber insane.
I haven't seen Pi. Should I see that?
Not related to time travel, but pretty good.
If you want to see a really good movie, see The Room.
Well, we haven't talked
about The Room. Well, we have.
And AJ's seen it too.
What was your favorite scene in The Room?
Mine was the sex scene. The repeat The Room? Mine was the sex scene.
The repeat sex scene?
Yeah, the sex scene.
My favorite was when...
For people who don't know what we're talking about,
a listener named Andrew suggested we see the worst movie of all time,
which he posited was this movie called The Room.
And we've talked about it before,
but we're refreshing you.
And it is about nothing.
It is about this terrible guy who...
A femme fatale.
A femme fatale who is...
Who is not attractive.
She's not in the slightest.
Like, just...
And she's always...
Whenever anyone wants to deal with her,
she always claims to be busy,
although she's never busy with anyone.
And also, it seems that she's...
Her mother has cancer, which is shocking.
She's irresistible to men.
That's my favorite thing.
She's irresistible to men.
She's the most average-looking woman in the world, but all men are like, I cannot!
Even the young friend who's strangely old is in love with her.
And the writer-director-star of it, Tommy Wiseau, claims he's European.
And he's written the movie.
His background is shrouded in mystery.
His background is shrouded in mystery.
He's definitely Austrian or German.
Or French.
But he's determined that Americans spend all their time playing football.
Yeah, there's a great...
I think that might
be my favorite sequence in the movie is where he goes to the little kid let's play some foot no
it's actually in the back alley where they're like let's play a game of football in tuxedos
in tuxedos and they throw the ball maybe all of two feet to the guy who catches it and then
falls down falls down because it's all shot in the smallest set with like painted bricks isn't
that right yeah you can tell that they only had two walls
And the rooftop is all
They keep going up to the roof
Because that's the coolest place in the world
And it's all in green screen
You're tearing me apart
Lisa
I did not
So you listener
I would just suggest you can download it on your torrent sites
It's called The Room It's a delight Just as Listener, I would just suggest you can download it on your torrent sites. It's called The Room.
It's a delight.
It's the worst movie ever.
Just as a note, I've discovered that Tommy Wiseau is kind of like the Klaus Kinski of his generation.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
There's a lot of similarities there.
Crazy.
Talented?
With a question mark?
No, crazy.
And crazy.
My favorite scene is the fact that they have the same sex scene.
Or they certainly use the same footage twice.
It's because she probably refused to have sex with him again.
Well, I don't think he's actually had sex.
He looks roided out.
There's real thrusting and real grunting, which you don't often see in movies.
He's kind of also got a Mickey Rourke steroid thing going on.
Yeah, he's the Mickey Rourke of Europe.
And he's never going to get that promotion.
I want to throw out, before we wrap things up,
because I asked for hilarious pranks from listeners,
and some listeners obliged.
What? what if you fart in your mother's mixing bowl or you steal your girlfriend's birth control it's hilarious pranks hilarious pranks um okay uh okay before the the whole thing was i asked
for pranks i got some pranks.
And I have one of my own.
I might save it, though, because I have a great Christmas prank that doesn't hurt anybody but is amazing.
Except Christ.
No, no, it helps Christ.
Okay.
Yeah, it's one of the few pranks that helps Christ.
Okay, this is from Eric M.
Eric M. of Much Music fame.
That's a Canadian joke from 1984.
Get on board.
I have a good prank for your college age bumpers, which I think we have some.
Oh, certainly.
At my university, most classes require tons of PowerPoint presentations.
Most people will just bring their PowerPoint on a flash drive and load it at their presentation time.
While it is loading, typically everyone can see what else is on the person's flash drive up on the projector.
If you knew a roommate or friend had an upcoming presentation, you could add a bunch of questionably,
level of questionableness to be determined by how much you actually like that person,
named files to their flash drive, prompting curious stares from classmates
i think that's a fucking that's a great prank harm level low yeah right super easy super easy
but you know like you know goat fucking yeah right or uh dildo schematics doc
hilarious right that's not uh nobody's gonna get hurt by that but it's gonna make
it's gonna make for a little chat yeah yeah at the campus water cooler
yeah in the quad where the kids hang out where you're hanging out on the roof in green screen
um all right this is from a listener named beth she sent in some like historical
pranks right these. These were good.
These were featured on the
Neil Patrick Harris episode of
Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
Were they? Yeah. I don't know what
that show is. It's an NPR show.
Okay. So these same ones
were featured on... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Should I do them or should people just
download that? Is that a thing?
I'm thinking... Oh, yeah. She heard this one on that public radio show. Should I do them or should people just download that? Is that a thing?
Yeah, she heard this one on that public radio show.
Horace Devere Cole from 20th Century England gave a group of bald men carefully selected theater tickets
so their heads spelled out in obscenity
when seen from the balcony above.
That is so much forethought
and targeted at maybe two guys
I like that you said bald men
that's how I pronounce it
how do you pronounce it bald men?
like it's not an occupation
or a name
we're going over to the bald men's
I snatched another one
from Mr. Cole's pranks from his
Wikipedia that's what she said
that's what she said
Cole dared I suspect it was a double dog dare pranks from his wikipedia that's what she said that's that's that's what she said um
cole dared i suspect it was a double dog dare maybe even a triple dog dare she's
what are the criteria of a dog dare all right a dog dare minimum right that's like isn't there
just a dare yeah there's a day right dare is the minimum I dare you to go throw a snowball at such and such.
Dog dare.
Add up the stakes.
If you don't do it.
No, no, no.
But doesn't dog dare mean that if you...
Do you have to have sex with a dog?
No.
If you do it, I'll do it.
What's that?
I don't know.
But triple dog dare definitely does not indicate that there will be a...
So the raising of stakes has nothing to do with stakes.
No, or dogs.
Or dog stakes.
It's just...
Do you know anything further to this?
I'm trying to think of something, but no.
Okay.
I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article about it.
So Cole dared a member of Parliament to race him to the nearest corner with a 10-yard head start,
having already slipped his gold watch into the parliamentarian's pocket.
When the member of parliament then began to run, Cole yelled for the police,
who promptly arrested the pickpocket and took him to the nearest police station.
That is a quality prank.
I think old-timey times are the best times for pranks.
If that really happened.
I think if you went back in time, A.J. Vaughn...
My movie would be so much more A.J. Vaughn...
My movie would be so much more popular.
You would do a lot.
If you just went back in time to play pranks.
I hated cinema.
Yeah.
You outsmarted everyone with your prankery.
So thank you very much for sending those.
And continue.
If you do have a hilarious prank...
I feel like at the end of the episodes,
we talk so fast.
Like we just keep talking to each other.
Yeah, it's just talking over each other until we get all the information out.
Is that a
criticism? No, I'm just saying that
it's an observation. I'm an observational
comedian.
I've never listened to the end. Have you ever noticed this?
It's really...
Have you seen this show? Just kidding. Have you seen these things?
I'm enjoying the shit out of this show.
Thank you so much for sending in the pranks.
And if you want to send in any more, you can send them to stoppodcastyourself at gmail.com.
Can you send in pranks that you've done?
Yeah, done, thought of, too chicken to do, ones you've read about, ones you've heard about.
I'm just interested in hilarious pranks.
Yeah.
That's all.
Like, suppose you fart in your mother's mixing bowl, you steal your girlfriend's birth control. It's hilarious pranks. Hilarious pranks. Yeah. That's all. Like, it's supposed to be fart in your mother's mixing bowl,
you steal your girlfriend's birth control.
It's hilarious pranks.
Hilarious pranks.
Where else do we go?
I think we're...
I think we have
an abundance.
Yeah,
we ran the distance.
Abundanza.
AJ,
do you have anything
coming up in the future
you would like to plug?
No, no, just watch
my last short on IMDb
or maybe we'll post it on Vimeo
Yeah, we'll post a link
We'll post it on our blog
You can comment on it, you can vote on IMDb
though you know IMDb doesn't
It's weighted
Unless you have a weighted vote
Unless you have a nice girthy vote
Are you saying Roger Ebert has more weight because he's fatter?
Well, I don't know if you've seen him lately, but
he's actually gotten really thin.
Because he's got cancer.
Alright, well you can
spot that on stoppodcastingyourself.blogspot.com
along with your amazing
blogs that you post each and every week.
If you have any comments at all,
not just hilarious pranks, if you want to just send send an email and thank you to everybody who has emailed to us uh
in the past while we answer all the emails and we like if you have any questions that you like to
answer i think we did a great round table here today i think we made some satisfying you know
that's yeah something that jason could put into the mill to figure out for his own self his next step in life, forward or backwards in time.
And yeah, so send us any and all queries to stoppodcastingyourself at gmail.com.
And Dave and Charlie Demers, two of my favoritest people in the world, run a weekly show now at Slickety Jim's on Main Street.
Main Street and Broadway.
In Vancouver.
In Vancouver.
If you're in Vancouver, you want to see a great comedy show on Thursday nights, I'll show up regularly.
We had some podcast listeners there last week.
They were delightful.
I'll probably be there this week.
Okay.
I'll be hanging out.
So if you like...
Do you want to do a spot?
Yeah, buddy.
All right.
We'll see what we can do.
Yeah, we'll see if you can squeeze me in. So check that out. So if you like... Do you want to do a spot? Yeah, buddy. All right. We'll see what we can do. Yeah, we'll see if you can squeeze me in.
So check that out.
It's every Thursday at 8.30.
8 o'clock.
8.30 Newfoundland.
42 of the hour in Newfoundland.
8 o'clock, Slickety Jim's.
Be there or don't.
We don't want your bad attitude.
Thanks so much for downloading the podcast.
If you enjoyed it, tell your friends.
And come on next week we'll have another excellent podcast review to listen to here on stop podcasting yourself